Dagger of Amon Ra play! - Tawmis

[Collector]

Floppy and MPC CD versions. The version in the KQ Collection Series and the RWA is the MCP. Hey Tawm, game version for the saves?

[Tawmis]

Floppy and MPC CD versions. The version in the KQ Collection Series and the RWA is the MCP. Hey Tawm, game version for the saves?

Well damn! I don't think I have ever played the talkie version!

As for version - 1.1

[BBP]

Ah las-tead fahve min-nates listening to Laura Bow. Had a hard time making out what any of the characters were saying and voice plus text was not possible. At times I switched it back on for curiosity, but playing a game with it didn't work.

Laura Bow 2, of all Sierra games, I think could use an overhaul. They could take the skeleton out of the harness (I keep picking on that one but that was so pointless, irrational and unrealistic...), but also do something about the saving. At times in chapter 3 I couldn't save, and that would be so annoying, if I really had had enough and wanted to quit... There's that weird bug of Lavinia in the walls of the Great Masters room. There's the interrogation with the notebook - 4 or 5 clicks per question and having to ask people 20 questions, that was so tedious...

Anyway Tawm, if you'd like the talkie, there's a (boxless) Roberta Williams Anthology I've located, it's a snip at E 2,50. If you'd like it I'll send it your way.

[Collector]

That's a steal. Sounds like it will cost more to ship than the price.

[adeyke]

The issue with both Laura Bow games is that playing through the game optimally requires knowledge the player can't have. it's all about being at the right place at the right time, but you can't tell beforehand where you should be and which actions will advance the time. So if you're just playing the game, you won't be able to figure what you should do next, without either saving and loading a lot or consulting a walkthrough.

LB2 is better than LB1 in this regard because it also has some standard adventure game puzzles. You might completely fail the test at the end, but even getting to that point is still an accomplishment. In LB1, you can get through the entire game by only walking around and entering a single command.

[Tawmis]

Ah las-tead fahve min-nates listening to Laura Bow.
Had a hard time making out what any of the characters were saying and voice plus text was not possible. At times I switched it back on for curiosity, but playing a game with it didn't work.

I'd imagine the guy with the WAY over exaggerated lisp (at least in the text version) would be the difficult one to understand! Half the time when his text box appeared, I'd skim it because it was SO difficult to read.

Laura Bow 2, of all Sierra games, I think could use an overhaul.

It's a good game, though. Just a bit ruthless at times!

It's like Roberta was competing with Space Quest for the most deaths!

They could take the skeleton out of the harness (I keep picking on that one but that was so pointless, irrational and unrealistic...),

Skeleton in a harness? I don't think I ever saw that? There was askeleton in a chest, which didn't seem that far fetched, consideringthe flesh eating beetles were in there.

but also do something about the saving. At times in chapter 3 I couldn't save,

There's a few rooms specifically, you can never save in. The Lab (with all the vats). And I think that was to stop people from checking all 16 vats. Because you can only check 2 vats at the most, within that room, and you die. You can check 2, then leave the room, and come back and check 2 more and rinse and repeat. Otherwise, I think they were making it a little more difficult from people saving in the Lab room, and checking every vat till they died, and then restoring back in that room. And you can't save in that secret tunnel that requires the lantern. Both of those have impending death in that scene - which is why you probably can't save.

But I think all the other rooms, you're able to save in.

There's that weird bug of Lavinia in the walls of the Great Masters room.

Which one? The pain in the rump of clicking the EXACT right spot to see the "glittering" item on the painting?

There's the interrogation with the notebook - 4 or 5 clicks per question and having to ask people 20 questions, that was so tedious...

I would not have minded this so much - if it STAYED on the page I was last on. Once I started getting a bunch of names in my notebook (4 pages worth of names, I believe) - it got to be a pain to click "Next Page" each time I was questioning someone. So if it remembered I was on page 2 or 3 or 4, and when I clicked on the book - that's what it would open to - then it would have been much, much, much nicer.

Anyway Tawm, if you'd like the talkie, there's a (boxless) Roberta Williams Anthology I've located, it's a snip at E 2,50. If you'd like it I'll send it your way.

Thank you! As Collector said, it'd probably cost too much to ship! Now that I know it exists, when I have money (I just got back from NYC), I will hunt it down. Thank you for always being an angel.

The issue with both Laura Bow games is that playing through the game optimally requires knowledge the player can't have. it's all about being at the right place at the right time, but you can't tell beforehand where you should be and which actions will advance the time. So if you're just playing the game, you won't be able to figure what you should do next, without either saving and loading a lot or consulting a walkthrough.

Actually not entirely correct! About not knowing when and where to be - because if you used the Intercom (in that one person's office) - you could over hear some dialogue of when people would be meeting. Also, if you used the glass on the door - you could pick up things. And in some people's rooms, the intercom would come on and they'd say, "If you're there Heitzhel {whatever that crazy guard's name was!}, meet me in the Medieval room so you can show me your scars!"

That said, I only ever got to really "spy" on one person in the Medieval Room, with the paintings (while hiding behind the curtain thing, which I found as a guess, because I was expecting secret passages somewhere in this game; similar to LB1. I even thought the third Mummy Coffin was a secret passage; just turned out to be an empty coffin (that you later hide in).

So I will say - the lack of secret passages and the ability to really spy on people, similar to LB1, I feel made this game significantly weaker in that regard.

LB2 is better than LB1 in this regard because it also has some standard adventure game puzzles.

Yes, but it has some very, very, very out of the way thinking also (that I found only by randomly combining or clicking on things).

[BBP]

Did you find the secret passage that runs from Olympia's room? I never got round to use it, because as soon as you move whatever it is that causes the door to open, makes that silly lady walk right into it to her death, and I got frustrated with it before I found the lamp. There's also a secret passage in the vat room.

Skeleton: Pippin Carter's skeleton is moved to the conspicuous middle armor in the armor room once chapter 3 has started. (The Dutch word for an armor a knight would wear is "harnas" so sometimes I mix up the words, sorry. ) It would take a long time for anyone to get screwed into an armor, let alone if whoever gets in it is not cooperating (if you've ever dressed a dummy or tried to put a heavy duty tent into its bag, you know what I mean); it would also be noisy, not to mention nigh impossible to get the armor to stand upright with all that dead weight in it. It has, moreover, no purpose whatsoever. It was only written in for extra shock effect, as if finding a fresh corpse in an ancient sarcophagus wasn't bad enough. Perhaps Lorelei had just played Clock Tower - First Fear.

LB has a female narrator. The calm, subdued and friendly phrase "You pick it up and place it in your purse" sounds hilarious during the chase scene. Ziggy (I assume he's the one you meant) is tough to understand, yes. Olympia Myklos was much much worrrrrrrrse. The sound quality and compression don't help much.

I could use paper sleeves for the Roberta Williams Anthology, are you sure you don't want it?

[Tawmis]

Did you find the secret passage that runs from Olympia's room?

I did. That's the one I died in - and died again, after I found the lantern thing (which was ridiculously hidden! Who hides a lantern behind a mirror? Seriously?)

I never got round to use it, because as soon as you move whatever it is that causes the door to open, makes that silly lady walk right into it to her death, and I got frustrated with it before I found the lamp. There's also a secret passage in the vat room.

Wait? What? What lady? When I found it there was no one in the room (and it led to a room where there was no one).

Skeleton: Pippin Carter's skeleton is moved to the conspicuous middle armor in the armor room once chapter 3 has started. (The Dutch word for an armor a knight would wear is "harnas" so sometimes I mix up the words, sorry. ) It would take a long time for anyone to get screwed into an armor, let alone if whoever gets in it is not cooperating (if you've ever dressed a dummy or tried to put a heavy duty tent into its bag, you know what I mean); it would also be noisy, not to mention nigh impossible to get the armor to stand upright with all that dead weight in it. It has, moreover, no purpose whatsoever. It was only written in for extra shock effect, as if finding a fresh corpse in an ancient sarcophagus wasn't bad enough. Perhaps Lorelei had just played Clock Tower - First Fear.

Ah! Yes, okay! Now I know what you mean!

When you said harness, I thought you meant like hanging from a rope thing!

And there's a secret room in the Vat Room? What? Where? I thought it was the sewer tunnel thing on the floor, but I couldn't open it.

LB has a female narrator. The calm, subdued and friendly phrase "You pick it up and place it in your purse" sounds hilarious during the chase scene. Ziggy (I assume he's the one you meant) is tough to understand, yes. Olympia Myklos was much much worrrrrrrrse. The sound quality and compression don't help much.
I could use paper sleeves for the Roberta Williams Anthology, are you sure you don't want it?

No, it's not Ziggy. It's the other guy -the one that's the head of the "Church of Amon Ra" beneath the Museum!

As for the collection, it's all right. I beat the game, so I am not in a rush to go through it again! I will find it later, I'm sure! I just never knew to look for it!

[BBP]

Rameses Najeer!
My bad - the passage goes from Olympia's office to the vat lab, apparently not the other way round.

[Tawmis]

Rameses Najeer!

Yes, him!